27 December 2008
book review
Talk about catching them young. The Bird's Evidence, an anthology of 18 short stories, majority of which were written by the students of Government Technical College, Ungoggo, Kano state, delivers on two levels.
First, it represents the determination of an English teacher, the editor of the anthology, to provide his students with an intimate access point to the language, thereby making them more adept at its use. Secondly, it brings out the creative instinct of these students and seeks to help them perfect it, encouraging, in the process, both the teen authors and their mates to work harder at discovering their talents.
The stories in The Bird's Evidence are divided into three parts, with the story from which the collection and the first part get their title easily being the most successful. Written by Najif Yusuf, a JSS 2 student at the time the anthology was compiled (in 2005), "The Bird's Evidence" is the story of two friends, Malam Talle and Malam Tinau. While on a business trip, Malam Talle suddenly falls dead and his family, nursing a grudge against his friend and business partner, accuse Malam Tinau of poisoning him. In the end, Malam Tirau is exonerated based on the evidence of a bird, the only witness at the scene when Malam Talle died.
Other stories in the first part of the anthology are Dauda Rabiu Danja's "The Story of a Kind Spirit", in which a supposedly old man is helped by a poor girl and, in appreciation, he rewards her with a bag full of gold; "Reap What You Sow" by Umar Ibrahim Abdu, a then SSS 3 student, which is thematically similar with Danja's; here, though, a prominent fisherman who has been without an heir assists an old man who gives him the glad tiding that he will soon have a son.
Also in the first part of the anthology is the story of Hafizu, a Hausa boy, and Boda Mike, a Yoruba man. The two become intimate friends when the former returns some money lost by the latter and refuses to take a token. The story, "The Flocking Birds", was written by the editor of the collection, Khalid Imam.
"The Story of Two Stingy Men", written by Aminu Hamisu Gadan, a then SSS 1 student who "has an abiding interest in creative writing", is the entertaining story of Zumbuli and Mannau, who always compete to take the crown of the most stingy man in history. An incident makes Zumbuli, the perpetual winner of the competition, to mend his ways and become the most generous man in history.
The first part of the book closes with a story by Shu'aibu Muktar Gambo, who won the school's Press Club Best Reporter Award in 2005. Titled "A Broken Promise", it is the story of three brothers: the eldest is the village head, the second one is a successful business man, and the third chooses to be a Qur'anic teacher-and because of this, his brothers look down on him disdainfully. In the end however, both of them lose their mundane holdings and have to beg the teacher to pray for them; thereafter they regain what they lost and hold their brother in high esteem.
The second part of the book, titled "The Evils of Rudeness/Disobedience", has five stories. The first, by Abdullahi M. Lawan-described as "a good poet and story teller"- "Why a Lizard Nods its Head", narrates that the lizard nods his head because one day, when his mother fails to give him what he has asked for, he refuses to talk to her. When she talks to him, he nods his head and, in anger, she curses him.
There is also the second story of Najif Yusuf, "The Price of Rudeness", about a man, Isiyaku Mai Jaki, who refuses to give water to a wayfarer, speaking rudely to him. Isiyaku later comes across a bag in the road he thinks is full of money; on opening it, however, the man he refused to help comes out in the form of a snake and bites him.
A colleague of Imam, Mustapha Muktar, also contributed a story. His "Alhaji Tanimu and his Disobedient Son" is about a spoilt boy who is dull and comes last in his class; while in "A Night of Horror", Abdulkadir Musa writes a story that should have belonged to a different part titled "The Reward for Bravery," for it narrates how the persona saves his father's savings from dangerous thieves by raising alarm.
The last story in this part is Khalid Imam's second story of the collection, "The Evil Men Do Chases Them", which is didactically similar to "Alhaji Tanimu and his Disobedient Son". In the former, however, the son in question is not spoilt by his parents-he instead keeps bad company-and gets arrested by the police while smoking Indian hemp.
The last part of the anthology contains two stories. These are Khalid Imam's third story, "The Pangs of Bachelorhood", and Ismail Bala Garba's "The Blank Book". Garba teaches English in the Department of English and French, Bayero University, Kano.
These stories, like the other ones written by teachers and sprinkled around the anthology, are, perhaps, like beacons, meant to guide the students towards what they should aspire to achieve. Whereas Khalid Imam's deals with a real world problem-a heart broken young man's fear of the opposite sex-Ismail Bala Garba's delves into the somewhat surrealistic - a bookworm faced with the challenge of finding meaning on the blank pages of a 'rare' book, and ending up discovering that his mind is also similarly blank.
The overall success of The Bird's Evidence, however, will depend on how the young authors whose works have been published here are now faring as creative writers a few years after and what they, and future generations who will read the book, do with their creative impulses.
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